This bill having been read on two different days, the question now is shall the bill pass finally? The Clerk will please call the roll.
Aye. 2/13/03 - STATED - 2ND READING AND FINAL PASSAGE The ayes are 14, the nays are 0. A majority of all Members of Council having voted in the affirmative, the bill passes. The final bill to be called for consideration is Bill No. 030011.
An ordinance authorizing Lawrence Goldfarb and Gerda Paumgarten of 630 West Cliveden Street, owners of the property 8605 Navajo Street, also known as 310 Rex Avenue, to construct and maintain a privately owned water main, storm water, and sanitary sewers, all under certain terms and conditions.
This bill having been read on two different days, the question now is shall the bill pass finally? The Clerk will please call the roll.
Aye. The ayes are 14, the nays are 0. A majority of all Members of Council having voted in the affirmative, the bill passes. Are there any speeches on the part of minority? (No response.)
Are there speeches on the part of the majority? The Chair recognizes Councilman Ortiz.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Last week I spoke about some bigots from Berks County and their attitudes towards Puerto Ricans and people of Spanish-speaking descent. Today and this week we have a visitor from Australia, a person that really prides himself or herself in really not being American and being a very provincial person. And she is in a theater here, and I'm asking the people from Philadelphia and the surrounding area not to go to this show. It is Dame Edna. She has a column on national magazine Vanity Fair. And actually, my daughter called me from California and told me to read this article. She has a column in there in which she gives advice. And somebody wrote to her asking advice as to whether he should learn Spanish. This is her response: "Dear Torn, forget Spanish. There is nothing in that language worth reading except Don Quixote, just a minor piece of work, and a quick of Man of La Mancha will take care of that. There was a poet named Garcia Lorca, but I would leave him on the intellectual back burner if I were you. As for everyone speaking it, what waddle. Who speaks it that you are really desperate to talk to? The help? Your leaf blower? The kitchen help? Study French or German where there are at least a few books worth reading. Or if you're American, try English." The tragedy of it is that the cover of that magazine that month had on the cover Selma Hyatt, a Mexican, gorgeous woman, very talented and a Oscar nominee for her portrayal of Freda Carlo who was the mistress and wife of probably one of the greatest painters our world has ever know, Diego Rivera. And obviously, this lady, she is or him -- I think it is a him, does not understand who, obviously, he is or was. To make fun and to put these statements forward of a population of this country of over 37 million people, and by the time that this century is a few decades older, probably a hundred million Latinos in this country or people who speak Spanish. But after all, it was not a Frenchman or a German ocean to settle this continent. They were people from Spain, they were sailors sailors from Spain. To ignore the contributions, the art work, painters, and they're so numerous to mention but obviously she never saw a painting by Picasso and she never read the book of poetry of Garcia Lorca, a poet in New York. If she read the poems of Garcia Lorca of his experience in New York in the 1920s when he was a Columbia University student, she would know that as a poet and a writer he is not somebody in the intellectual back burner. Garcia Lorca died very young. He died when he was shot by fascists during the Spanish American War, a war that was used by Hitler and Mussolini to practice the tactics that they later on used against Poland, France, and the rest of Europe. Obviously, Dame Edna who comes from Australia, a country that has had a policy ever since England decided to use it as one of a prison camp of eliminating the Aborigines and the native folks that live there, a people that really does not, in that respect, do not begin to understand the culture and society of the Aborigines until a few years ago, still does not understand that what America is all about; that we are what Jim Kenney spoke about, a nation of immigrants, multicultural multi-language, and very proud of that. And I believe that Philadelphians and those people that are around the surrounding area should not go to this theater production of a bigoted individual and we should send a message to her or to him that bigots are not loved back in Philadelphia. Thank you, Madam Chair.
You're welcome. Are there any other speeches on the part of the majority? (No response.)
Seeing none, the Chair recognizes Councilwoman Blackwell for a motion to adjourn.
Thank you, Madam President. I make a motion this Council stands adjourned until Thursday, February 20, 2003, at 10 o'clock a.m. (Duly seconded.)
It has been moved and seconded that Council stands adjourned until Thursday, February 20, 2003. say aye. (Aye.)
The ayes have it, and the motion carries. Thank you. (Council adjourned at 11:20 a.m.) C E R T I F I C A T I O N I HEREBY CERTIFY that the foregoing proceedings of the Council of the City of Philadelphia of February 13, 2003, were reported fully and accurately by me, and that this is a correct transcript of the same. RE: STATED MEETING ___________________________ Lisa C. Bradley, RPR and Notary Public